“Killing two birds with one stone”: How Angel Reese turned “Mebounds” trolling into a six-figure business while helping her foundation

Angel Reese did something pretty smart with a joke that was never meant to help her. Critics used “Mebounds” to mock the WNBA star for grabbing rebounds after her own misses. Reese instead turned the term into merchandise, made six figures from it and directed some of the money toward her foundation’s fight against cyberbullying. What started as criticism eventually became one of Reese’s most successful off-court moves.The move also fit a bigger part of Reese’s brand. She has consistently spoken about online negativity and the pressure young athletes face on social media. So rather than simply cashing in on a viral phrase, she found a way to connect the business to something she already wanted to address. Angel Reese turned a jab about her rebounds into a real businessMebounds came from people poking fun at Reese for collecting offensive rebounds after her own missed shots. The joke spread across social media, but Reese did not take the approach many athletes might. She embraced the word and started looking at what she could build from it.Reese eventually filed a trademark application for “MEBOUNDS” through Angel Reese LLC. The filing covered clothing such as T-shirts, sweatshirts and hats. She then launched the merchandise featuring the term, along with “REESEBOUNDS” and “REBOUNDS” designs. Some of the clothing also carried the line, “Anything that comes off that board, it’s mine.”The merchandise quickly gave the joke a second life. Instead of letting critics control the meaning of “Mebounds,” Reese made it part of her own brand.There was another important piece to the launch. Reese announced that some of the proceeds would go to the Angel C. Reese Foundation to help fight cyberbullying. The foundation works to create opportunities for girls and underrepresented groups through sports, education and financial literacy, while also running initiatives focused on online safety.That connection gave Reese a way to use the same online attention that created the criticism to support a cause she cared about.Reese later explained the decision during an interview with Elle's Kayla Webley Adler. She said she first discovered “Mebounds” after seeing people repeatedly use the term in her TikTok comments.“And then I was like, well, might as well make some money off of it,” Reese told Elle. She then explained why she liked the result: “It’s important to maximize the moment, and turn a negative into a positive. We clearly did that.” Mebounds merch became a six-figure win for Angel Reese and her foundationThe business side of the idea became even clearer when Reese revealed how much she made from it. On Oct 2, 2025, during the Season 2 premiere of her “Unapologetically Angel” podcast, Reese said critics had tried to clown her for her rebounds, but she had turned the joke into “six figures-plus.” She also joked that people could keep coming up with ideas because she needed more concepts for future colorways.That was the payoff Reese had hinted at when she first embraced the term. A phrase that began as an insult had become a profitable piece of her business.But Reese had another reason to feel good about the move. In the Elle interview, she specifically talked about giving some of the money to her foundation for cyberbullying and described the decision as “killing two birds with one stone.”The “Mebounds” idea did not stop with shirts, sweatshirts and hats, either. Reese later carried the concept into her partnership with Reebok. The term became the name of one colorway of her Angel Reese 1 signature shoe, giving the joke another life beyond the original merchandise.The people who created Mebounds wanted to make Reese the punchline. Instead, Reese made herself the owner of the joke, the business and the bigger message behind it.Get the latest Sports News and Live updates. Download the TOI app.